Why does my door drop volume keep changing?

A commonly asked question by clients, particularly those who
repeat the same door drop coverage within weeks/months of their last drop.

There are a number of reasons, which can vary by final mile
supplier.

From both a Royal Mail door to door and team distribution
perspective, new builds are an obvious change.

Once new housing developments are fully land registered and
the roads within the development providing access are completely adopted,
coverage can commence.

Our solus figures are based upon quarterly updates from the
Postal Address File (PAF), so there can sometimes be a slight disconnect
between planning volumes and actual property counts come the time of
distribution.

Royal Mail door to door provide us with a monthly update on
postal sector allocations, which tends to be a more accurate reflection of
their coverage levels.

Another not so obvious reason for minor Royal Mail D2D
changes, is households opting out of receiving unaddressed promotional
material, or perhaps more pertinently, not renewing their opt out!

The system allows any UK household to opt out, but
registration only lasts for 2 years after which any household has to
re-register.

So if from drop to drop a sector count increases in single
digits, there’s every chance householders simply have not re-registered.

Or the original registrant has moved house and the new
occupants, unaware of the registration, only begin to receive door drop
activity when the registration expires.

When tendering for public sector work, where 100% coverage
is the holy grail, explaining opt out is not impossible, but its not possible
to quantify the scale in any area, because the detail is data protected.

My best guestimate is c. 500,000 households nationally, if you subtract the number of Royal Mail D2D coverage households from the number of households on the current PAF file.

Royal Mail currently service 9,358 postal sectors across the
UK, so an average of c. 53 households per sector, though I strongly suspect
that will be variable across the UK for any number of reasons, with demography
certainly one.

Simply based upon historical interrogation of postal sector
coverage households versus actual households when working on client schedules,
I’d suggest sectors in leafy suburbs will have a higher opt out rate than inner
city sectors.

But as a consumer if you are thinking about opting out, be
aware its an all or nothing scheme, you cannot be selective in receipt.

That’s led to some interesting debates over the years about
what constitutes “junk”!

Fast food leaflets have been door dropped in tens of millions
over the years and whilst not to everyone’s taste, you cannot eliminate them
and still receive your local council magazine.

We know of angry councillors complaining that they did not
receive a council communication and whilst delighted at being able to advise it
was because they are registered as an opt out, in some cases it also appears to
have encouraged them to opt back in!

Royal Mail D2D activity can be booked up to 13 months in
advance, so planned versus actual households will always change, albeit
slightly, during the lifetime of a long term contract.

Accordingly, we always encourage clients to deliver a small
amount of surplus stock to final mile suppliers to enable them to pick up
additional properties and avoid unnecessary gaps where possible.

So alleged non coverage of any households on door drop
campaigns is not necessarily a quality problem, there may be a very logical
reason.

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